BRINGING RAW FOOD TO CONGRESS, ONE CANDIDATE AT A TIME

Jon Powers, the Blue America-endorsed candidate from western New York (NY-26), was in Los Angeles today and Irwing and I took him to dinner. I didn't ask him if he wanted Buffalo wings; instead we took him to Juliano's Raw for his first raw vegan dinner. He says he loved it and he sure cleaned his plate as well as the rest of us. Irwing has been thinking about enlisting in the French Foreign Legion and Jon gave him a good talk about that and recommended a couple of books to read a movie or two to watch before he does anything precipitous.

Jon is running against a classic rubber stamp Republican, Tom Reynolds, a professional politician and the walking, quacking definition of an Inside the Beltway hack. Reynolds has tried to tout himself as "an independent voice" but he can't seem to make that label stick. Maybe that's because of the 56 roll call votes he participated in relating to Iraq, he voted with Bush and Cheney 56 times. That doesn't exactly sound like an independent voice to me. I mean he couldn't even find one disagreement with the catastrophic Bush Iraq agenda? I guess if anyone loves the war and hates the troops they have the perfect candidate in Tom Reynolds.

Smelling very much like another Inside-the-Beltway candidate, former Reynolds supporter Alice Kryzan-- she donated $250 to his campaign on November 2, 2000-- has jumped into the race as well-- but as a Democrat challenging Jon in the primary! Most Democrats in the district who know her, and that isn't many, know her as the attorney for Occidental Petroleum who called the citizen uproar over the toxic disaster known as Love Canal "hysteria."

I hope when Jon's in Congress after January, 2009, he gets the cafeteria there to serve raw food. If you want to see the kind of guy he is, watch this shorts video clip. And if it so moves you, give him a hand in making America a better place.